Fluevog Elif

I haven't used watercolor since high school art, which is forever ago, so I was looking forward to giving it another whirl. For this class, I used a vintage set of cake colors rather than tubes, though I can see how tube paints would be a lot nicer to work with.

I think the project turned out ok, but I still have a way to go in letting the paint flow and not trying to be so perfect with it. In some places, I kept trying to smooth out the paint lines so much that I colored in spots that should have been white, and/or started to jack up the surface of the paper.

Color mixing...

I made a chart with the 14 colors in the tin. It really lets you see how you need to control the amount of water, and how to balance the two colors so one didn't dominate. This set also has a black and a white cake. I really liked using the white to get the lighter colors without losing the intensity, though I know there are times when the higher transparency would be a better option.

The shoe...

I traced a printout of the Elif shoe from the Fluevog website. Their shoes are like little art pieces, so I thought they'd be perfect models.

It could have used a little more yellow tone in the green. The inside leather texture came about sort of accidentally from blotting excess with a paper towel. The toe of the shoe is where I had the most problem with water control and trying to be too perfect. I wiped out basically all of the white on the toe and on the black of the front sole. The one tiny part that came out right was the sole of the heel. Even though it was a small touch, adding on the stitching thread made a big difference.